HUMAN RIGHTS IN GREECE SUBJECT OFCOMMISSION HEARING

(Washington) - The United States Helsinki Commission will conduct a hearing to highlight the human rights developments and the prospects for further improvement in Greece, an original signatory to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.

Human Rights in Greece: A Snapshot of the Cradle of Democracy

11:30 AM – 1:30 PM

Thursday, June 20, 2002

334 Cannon House Office Building

Witnesses:

Mania Telalian, Legal Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Dimitrios Moschopoulos, Counselor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Vassilios Tsirbas, Senior Counsel for the European Centre for Law and Justice

Topics of the hearing will include minority rights; religious liberty; freedom of the media; human trafficking; and domestic terrorism.

As Athens prepares to host the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, Roma have been uprooted from villages and areas around Athens in a “beautification” effort. Other ethnic and religious minorities face discrimination and harassment in Greece, the most homogeneous country in the Balkans.

There are an estimated 40,000 women and girls trafficked into Greece each year, many of them underage and living in virtual servitude after being forced or tricked into leaving their home countries. The government has recently introduced legislation to combat trafficking in persons, but the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report released on June 5 has ranked Greece as a Tier 3 country indicating that there have not been significant efforts to meet minimum anti-trafficking standards.

Freedom House recently ranked Greece last in media freedom among free countries, citing a pattern of criminal defamation lawsuits against journalists, some being sentenced to prison for their reporting.

An un-official transcript will be available on the Helsinki Commission’s Internet web site at http://www.csce.gov within 24 hours of the hearing.

The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.